A bridge over troubled water: A contextual analysis of social vulnerability to climate change in a riverine landscape in south-east Norway

Local communities in the Gudbrandsdalen region in Norway are increasingly exposed to climate-induced hazards such as floods and landslides. A core question is how community members respond to climate change and what factors contribute to more resilient communities. The authors used a contextual approach to analyze data from semi-structured interviews along five dimensions. In Gaustad Muncipality they found that individuals’ motivation to adapt to climate change depended largely on subjective values such as identity, place attachment, cultural values, and social networks among individuals, which means it is crucial that strategic plans for adaptation to climate change at different policy levels are experienced as relevant by community members. While the studied community has experienced heavy floods in river systems and streams, little evidence of adaptation was observed. Instead, they appeared to adopt coping strategies. Landowners may have limited incentives to adapt to climate change due to contraproductive policy measures such as economic compensation for direct losses without requiring improved practices. Effective adaptation to climate change on the local level is likely to require making compensation mechanisms contingent upon landowners showing willingness to change from coping to adaptive practices, as well as a contextualized approach integrating local and scientific forms of knowledge.     

China’s national carbon emissions trading scheme: lessons from the pilot emission trading schemes,academic literature,and known policy details

Upon completion, China’s national emissions trading scheme (C-ETS) will be the largest carbon market in the world. Recent research has evaluated China’s seven pilot ETSs launched from 2013 on, and academic literature on design aspects of the C-ETS abounds. Yet little is known about the specific details of the upcoming C-ETS. This article combines currently understood details of China’s national carbon market with lessons learned in the pilot schemes as well as from the academic literature. Our review follows the taxonomy of Emissions Trading in Practice: A Handbook on Design and Implementation (Partnership for Market Readiness & International Carbon Action Partnership. (2016). Retrieved from www.worldbank.org): The 10 categories are: scope, cap, distribution of allowances, use of offsets, temporal flexibility, price predictability, compliance and oversight, stakeholder engagement and capacity building, linking, implementation and improvements.

Key policy insights

• Accurate emissions data is paramount for both design and implementation, and its availability dictates the scope of the C-ETS.

• The stakeholder consultative process is critical for effective design, and China is able to build on its extensive experience through the pilot ETSs.

• Current policies and positions on intensity targets and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) credits constrain the market design of the C-ETS.

• Most critical is the nature of the cap. The currently discussed rate-based cap with ex post adjustment is risky. Instead, an absolute, mass-based emissions cap coupled with the conditional use of permits would allow China to maintain flexibility in the carbon market while ensuring a limit on CO₂ emissions.

     

High-frequency climate oscillations drive ice-off variability for Northern Hemisphere lakes and rivers

Climatic Change - This study examines the climatic drivers of ice-off dates for lakes and rivers across the Northern Hemisphere. Most lakes and rivers have trended toward earlier ice-off dates over...     

Positions of extragalactic objects in the vicinity of M3 and M31 (5C3 radio field) and in the 5C1 radio field

We have determined the positions of 65 compact extragalactic objects with magnitudes between 16^m and 21^m.7. The mean error of one position is about 0″.3 in α cos δ and in δ. Some hitherto unpublished redshifts are also listed.     

Water Cooperation Priorities in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin Based on Cooperative Events Since the Mekong River Commission Establishment

The Lancang-Mekong River has attracted much attention from researchers, but the cooperation on water issues in this river basin has been limited, even after the establishment of the Mekong River Commission(MRC). Cooperation on water resources has been determined as one of the key priority areas in the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism, but there are no details of targets. In order to establish the priorities of water cooperation under the mechanism, we adopted nine categories to classify the objectives of 87 water cooperation events based on the ‘Lancang-Mekong Water Cooperative Events Database' from 1995 to 2015. Based on the occurrence of cooperative events, cooperative objectives, cooperative scales, and approaches to cooperation, we conducted statistical, correlation, and text analyses. Our analyses indicated the following results: under the impact of economic conditions inside and outside the river basin, full cooperation appeared more difficult than bilateral and multilateral cooperation. Each of the partners adopted different preferences for cooperation targets. Cooperation with more definite objectives was easier to establish than cooperation with broader and more complex objectives. The potential objectives for water cooperation were navigation, hydropower, joint management, data sharing, flood control and water use. Because hydropower development is controversial, and because water cooperation is avoided by most existing regional cooperation mechanisms due to its complexity, we suggest the following priority areas for water cooperation in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin. 1) Navigation and flood control/drought relief are attractive objectives for all the riparian countries across the whole watershed. 2) Data sharing should be a priority for cooperation in the watershed due to its laying the foundation for the equitable and reasonable utilization of transboundary waters. 3) Hydropower is an objective best implemented mainly through bilateral cooperation, and on tributaries.     

Network analysis to inform invasive species spread among lakes

Often facilitated by human-mediated pathways,aquatic invasive species are a threat to the health and biodiversity of global ecosystems.We present a novel approach incorporating survey data of watercraft movement in a social network analysis to reconstruct potential pathways of aquatic invasive species spread between lakes.As an example,we use the green alga Nitellopsis obtusa,also known as starry stonewort,an aquatic invasive species affecting the Great Lakes region in the United States and Canada.The movement of algal fragments via human-mediated pathways(i.e.,watercraft)has been hypothesized as the primary driver of starry stonewort invasion.We used survey data collected at boat ramps during the 2013 and 2014 openwater seasons to describe the flow of watercraft from Lake Koronis,where N.obtusa was first detected in Minnesota,to other lakes in the state.Our results suggest that the risk of N.obtusa expansion is not highly constrained by geographic proximity and management efforts should consider highly connected lakes.Estimating human movement via network analysis may help to explain past and future routes of aquatic invasive species infestation between lakes and can improve evidence-based prevention and control efforts.     

Network analysis to inform invasive species spread among lakes

Often facilitated by human-mediated pathways,aquatic invasive species are a threat to the health and biodiversity of global ecosystems.We present a novel approach incorporating survey data of watercraft movement in a social network analysis to reconstruct potential pathways of aquatic invasive species spread between lakes.As an example,we use the green alga Nitellopsis obtusa,also known as starry stonewort,an aquatic invasive species affecting the Great Lakes region in the United States and Canada.The movement of algal fragments via human-mediated pathways(i.e.,watercraft)has been hypothesized as the primary driver of starry stonewort invasion.We used survey data collected at boat ramps during the 2013 and 2014 openwater seasons to describe the flow of watercraft from Lake Koronis,where N.obtusa was first detected in Minnesota,to other lakes in the state.Our results suggest that the risk of N.obtusa expansion is not highly constrained by geographic proximity and management efforts should consider highly connected lakes.Estimating human movement via network analysis may help to explain past and future routes of aquatic invasive species infestation between lakes and can improve evidence-based prevention and control efforts.     

S 10830 Trianguli – ein interessanter kataklymischer Veränderlicher

With the aid of silt spectrograms gained at the 6 meter telescope Selenchukskaja and at the 2 meter telescope Tautenburg a brightness outburst (the only one so far observed) could be followed up spectroscopically. The spectral behaviour resembles SS Cygni, but the presence of CIII and NIII emission is not typical of dwarf novae. Possibly the object is related to the anomalous recurrent nova WZ Sge. The definite determination of its belonging to a known subclass of cataclysmic variables will be possible only after obtainment of extensive photometric material.     

Dwarf Galaxies in the M 81/82 Group. New Photometric Data

We present a list of 39 dwarf galaxies of the M 81/82 group. Three different methods are applied to determine their apparent integral magnitude: digital processing, equidensitometry, and calculation according to the formulae of FISHER and TULLY . The plates used were obtained with the Tautenburg Schmidt telescope. For a distance of the group of 3.5 Mpc the absolute magnitudes of the dwarf galaxies investigated are -15^m < M < -9^m.